"Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the hero of [John] Burdett's Bangkok-based thrillers, is a unique police detective. A Buddhist as closely attuned to karma as to crime, Sonchai is profoundly aware that the latter is only an expression of the former, and, accordingly, he finds answers in places that logic-hampered Westerners would never know to look. In his third adventure to date, a murdered prostitute proves to be—even more in death than she was in life—a femme fatale of special magnitude.... Former Khmer Rouge hired killers, a pornography ring debased even by Bangkok standards, and a death by torture involving elephants ... [are part of] the vivid portrait he paints of contemporary Thai life and mores."—The New Yorker